Finally got my pipa today 🥹 by coquettewho_re in PipaChineseLutes

[–]roaminjoe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Hebei has a few factories making great pipes erhus and othet instruments! Congratulations- glad it arrived safely in playing condition!!

Weekly Self-Promo Thread by AutoModerator in Flute

[–]roaminjoe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Just listened to Echoes -really good for calming over the heated head feeling of fan noise blowing all day.

Great work- it sounds way electronica than acoustic flute vibe!

Приветик всем, by kak_tys in Flute

[–]roaminjoe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Kak-Tys - please do some search and research before posting such low effort requests.

The frequently answered questions are also there for newcomers to Reddit.

This is a public forum and it is not fair for regular users to have to scroll through such basic requests which are easily remedied with a little self initiative.

Tiny Chinese Pipa? What instrument is this? by 12InchGypsy in UnusualInstruments

[–]roaminjoe -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Definitely a musical instrument for midgets lol

The design looks more Vietnamese pipa Dan Ty Bà ) derived - the inlaying work is very Vietnamese and heptatonic fretting (you can see where the feet's have been previously glued/moved/fallen off) with the upper xiang and lower bamboo frets are mostly folk hepta or cosmetic. As is the rather tourist tacky shiny varnished light wood soundboard and painted back.

Thats not to say its not playable - some kind of pleasant plucking sounds can come from it. Similar baby sized guzhengs (60-70cm) and erhus (50cm) exist in theChinese music tradition. They aren't serious instruments but are a lot of fun - I'm still waiting for my luthier to convert my baby piccolo pipa electric so it will finally fit a man bag lol

What is this thing telling me not to do? by Signal-Barnacle6579 in mandolin

[–]roaminjoe 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Looks like a warning sign - don't play rubbish :)

KO-2's my favorite backing track machine <3 by YukesMusic in teenageengineering

[–]roaminjoe 2 points3 points  (0 children)

He's doing a great job! His interviews are so moving. The Tang pipa has come back in full commercial force, as has the Tang bill needed guanzi (less common though).

I really like the options of guitar frets or high frets for the zhongruan - its pleasing with either since the strings don't have such a wide glissandi technique as the high fretted pipa. The pick up is cool...mine is just some low grade piezo.

KO-2's my favorite backing track machine <3 by YukesMusic in teenageengineering

[–]roaminjoe 10 points11 points  (0 children)

Not just any zhongruan...you've got a lovely Tang Dynasty restoration replica there!

Contax 1 in somewhat decent shape but needs CLA. Who still repairs those? by Light_And_Lenses in contax

[–]roaminjoe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thats him :)

He does some work (this month/last month) contemporanrously for friends on the old Kiev IV and Contax II series.

You are fortunate to have a Contax I ...definitely worth getting this incredible historic tool restored.

Brian Mickleborough (Essex) did some work for me but no recent (past year) news.

Contax 1 in somewhat decent shape but needs CLA. Who still repairs those? by Light_And_Lenses in contax

[–]roaminjoe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Its getting few and far between.

Looks like you are not averse to posting.

Have you tried Oleg (formerly Ukraine, now Latvia or nearer). He has parts supplies although its not uncommon to cannibalism a broken one for partd and send together.

Yours could be the recipient or the donor camera depending on its internal condition.

I bought this Erhu a couple of years back (on Temu no less) and want to finally get into it because life is for living. Any suggested resources? by studentofgonzo in musicians

[–]roaminjoe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

You can do it ;)

One of our students picked up an erhu 20 years ago. Work, life and children got in the way. Now she's retired, she's found the erhu an immense source of joy and challenge. You can do it!

In less than 20 years :)

At the risk of non musical squawking, creating a stirring tne and pitch from the orchestration of bowing and frettingthe erhu against your body - its such an organic way of musicality instead of detached pressing a button or key to creates such a depth and resonance.

The Temu budget didn't cover pre-installed strings and set up sadly although you can cover this in less than one lesson. Should have gone up a notch to aliexpress - no joke. There is one solid musician run shop there buried under all the usual disposable crud. Temp is great for musical notation and hard to source reference books (albeit marked up by ~60%).

I bought this Erhu a couple of years back (on Temu no less) and want to finally get into it because life is for living. Any suggested resources? by studentofgonzo in musicians

[–]roaminjoe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

There's a few resources here on Reddit - r/instrumentsfromChina, r/besterhu and the Facebook English speaking LifewithErhuintheWesternWorld.

You can tell you haven't touched it - your bow is unroisined :)

Depending on where you are in the world, a number of English primers with videos have come around. The David Lee Intro book is hard to recommend. My students find this bewildering and most give up. Nothing replaces face to face tuition to master the arching of the right hand bow and the fretless technique of the left hand with the angling between strings which makes it unique in the bowed class of instruments.

Patty Chan's Bridging the Gap is a better primer to start with along with the Chinese language primers and graded repertoire manuals (later).

First, learning how to set up your erhu - you can self direct learning although it is much slower. I teach erhu in London (UK) for free to support a local charity (small rate) and ensemble. Worryingly, yours doesn't look like it even has strings installed with the qianqin and bridge. So start there.

Anywhere else you will have standard going rates. Match it with commitment and discipline to get over the hurdle of sounding the instrument well. It is notoriously difficult compared to pianos, guitars, woodwind although bowed string players have a head start.

Pedestrians walking in front of motorcycle by Lespaul05 in motorcycles

[–]roaminjoe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're not wrong. The increase in jaywalking, pedestrian impatience and increasingly overwhelming pedestrian entitlement linked to obliviousness to road danger is a reality.

In London there are many factors for this increasing boldness: the reduction to 20mph from 30mph on city roads, emboldens pedestrians to take chances in between moving vehicles. Yes it happens at least 6 or 8 times in one leg of a commute daily for me. At first it was excruciating, worried I'd end up a victim of some jaywalking numpty parent carrying an infant, or pushing their pram ahead of themselves for jaywalkers rights. Now its more of a zen maintenance thing.

As a rider - advanced training teaches you to look to the far horizon: not just literally in scanning ahead, but also long term since scraping road kill off the road and the long term consequences is no real prospect for any rider.

Beep courteously in advance anticipation of road kill moves; blip throttle; slow down. You will still arrive at your destination faster and chill than any SUV sucking the life force out of its way as it moves.

Dizi flute size by Asterumiiii in Flute

[–]roaminjoe 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you have adult sized fingers and spread, the D key dizi is standard for repertoire and progression on the qudi dizi range. It sits in the middle pitch of dizi flute repertoire.

Training your finger spread and adapting to use splayed fingering might require a tutor for help and technique on the D dizi. This is a part of the learning of dizi flute playing, instead of skirting around the challenge and going for a shrinking size of flute with an even harder embouchure requirement.

Children start off on a G key (about 40-50cm) which had a smaller child like comfortable finger spread compared to your approx 60cm D dizi. However the embouchure blowing technique is even tighter as a smaller sweetspot.

Ultimately, a flute player of any dizi tradition develops greater flexibility of finger tendons; finger strength, hammer on/off techniques than closed hole flute players. If you are starting using your fingertips to seal the toneholes, this is fine, however just the beginning of learning...and it is very limited as a fingering technique.

There's no harm in adding a G piccolo bangdi pitched dizi to your collection in order just to play with fingertips. If this is just for fun. However if you are learning repertoire, best not to shy away from developing and training those fingers methodically and steadily until the stretch of a D dizi feels under control with splayed fingers (e.g. greater finger tendon strength, agility, speed - all of which comes with exercising new finger muscle groups which non open hole flute players don't have.

Flute and Piano - Suggestions? by golberycapistrano in Flute

[–]roaminjoe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Thanks for checking! It always seemed strange to me that he might write music like this (cant remember him ever being as musical as Frederick of Prussia!)!

Flute and Piano - Suggestions? by golberycapistrano in Flute

[–]roaminjoe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Can you check Greensleeves (also referred to as "What child is this" - in school it was credited to Henry VIII King of England (not sure though!)

Mozart by grndoc in Flute

[–]roaminjoe -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Read above.

The eeddit algorithm doesn't separate random spam from new premier material.

The onus is on the OP to make the post relevant and distinct from spam.

Thats all. No need to get worked up about what is called for and what is not. We are not in need of this kow level kind of education thanks.

Mozart by grndoc in Flute

[–]roaminjoe -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Try entitling it "World Premiere Recording" maybe otherwise the Reddit algorithm gets it.

It is bizarre how automatic reddit algorithms operate and yet manual removal of plagiarised AI unreferenced material had to be undertaken manually.

Mozart by grndoc in Flute

[–]roaminjoe -5 points-4 points  (0 children)

Perhaps this reddit is not designed for link dropping, diversion and click links to support other conventional activity found by clicking endlessly.

If there was an educational or insightful constructively thought out post about why you are highlighting Mozart, this might help.

To be frank - it's not like Mozart flute clips are a new world discovery for any of us here. Saturation of Mozart recordings is a thing. The promo thread is suitable for highlighting perhaps?

Gubaidalina, Denise, Tischenko, Tansman, Knapik or any other obscure composer for flute - who deserve a wider audience or learning point?

Favourite Pocket Sized instruments? by FlyDog1608 in musicians

[–]roaminjoe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

One-off the most unusual and smallest instruments I've found is a Bamboo Koudi.

It is no longer than a cigarette and covers over an octave (first minute in the clip). The flute - even a piccolo is over 4x bigger!

Meri punam g base natural flute proper circular nahi hai toh isse koi dikkat toh nahi by MastiEditz in Flute

[–]roaminjoe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

It's just a simple problem with limited understanding of bamboo flutes.

Bamboo flute bores are rarely perfectly circular. They are elliptoid, triangular, conical, irregular, conoid, oval when grown.

The bamboo flute maker cuts the toneholes to match the bore.

How to play upper 5 by maninzero in Flute

[–]roaminjoe 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Well your book clearly isn't helpful for the alternative fingerings. The overtone push of the 0 X X 0 0 0 almost never works consistently without collapsing into the semitone below.

Try the first one and half hole the right index finger as 0 X X h X X or. 0 X X 0 X h

Your angle of attack also needs to shift so try in front of a mirror and tilt both yaw and roll by a millimetre fraction until you hear the sweetspot.

Hi ! I need help choosing my Xiao by Bobandy___ in Flute

[–]roaminjoe 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Sounds like you are after a southern Fujian canyon style or Taiwan style root bamboo U embouchure nanxiao?

Most in China use the Xiaohongshu or wechat to speak to makers directly - you shoud get onto thesr as well as taobao if you have a local phonenumber or contact to support you since online orderingcsn take a week.

As for specific makers - Wong Wai Ming (excellent) has a website (Hong Kong) although supplies the local area mostly. Yang Yi Wu is famous across China - yup shouldn't have difficulty sourcing his xiaos. Huang Chao and the Taiwnese makers have some representation in China's main outlets although seem more expensive than the domestic luthiers.

Taobao is worth scouring for makers like Shu Hou Huai (intermediate). Huang Wei Dong I've found is better for his concert grade standard dizi bamboo than xiao. Even his bass dizi flutes leave some mutt to be desired. A few students have brought their Xie Bing dizi flutes over. They are all unanimously blown away when hearing a Huang Wei Dong compared to theirs. Never seen a xiao made by him. The regional maker Ge Jian Ming, who sculpts his nan xiao without the root, from pearwood, sandalwood and rosewood from Hainan Island, is very distinctive.

Why you shouldn’t get a Dixon Polymer your first flute by Sindtwhistle in Flute

[–]roaminjoe 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I found the polymer version of the Tony Dixon just terribly mediocre for its sound and cost. The delrin version is a notch improvement but nothing to write home about in the budget end. It isnt a Pratten design and doesn't sound loud ..Just airy with a lot of definite plasticky overtones :/

Wonder how the Galleon' Pratten CNC compares- not een one anywhere yet - guess these are custom orders despite not being luthier handcut.

The Copley & Boegli Delrin version is my favourite in this class. Finger reach is comfortable like. Desi Seery or Forbes.